ThE_0nE

Hi mate,

Mine Lexus is 2007 GS450h and I found the reference in the manual. If you go to 6.1 Specifications section of the owner manual you can find that Ignition system requires DENSO (FK20HBR11) or NGK (ILFR6D11T) iridium spark plug.

I bought 6 of them 17,50 EUR/each at auto-doc website.

GS450h is my first luxury car, so I can't complain about the comfort as i don't know any better. What I do have to complain is the head room, none existent for a tall guy. I'm 1,90 meters (6.2 foot) and my hair keeps rubbing against the ceiling.

Besides that it is a great car.

Hi Paulius,

Before buying GS450h I have researched alternatives for leaking shocks. Because it is normal thing to happen. Luckly for me, my shocks are still in good shape. 

The alternative that I found is Refurbished OEM Lexus shocks, 12 months Warranty! https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/LEXUS-GS450H-FRONT-RIGHT-LEFT-SIDE-ACTIVE-SHOCK-ABSORBERS/254788055994

I cannot give an actual feedback, but I would say it would be a good buy. I would buy for sure.

Although you are right, GS300 shocks fits GS450h (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VltUKbDJEnQ)

I'm not against GS300 shocks, but its up to you mate

I had the same concern as you John, but as Steve answered to you, it is totally normal.

Specially if it is cold outside, it will run longer on start-up.

Congrats John for a great car!

These cars are great machines, the only thing I can complain about mine is the rattling dashboard.

But that is it.

11 minutes ago, Chasdad said:

Ill try that. Cheers. 

Manual is something i can only read a bit at a time to be honest

I hear ya.

In my case, when I bought 450h 2007 a month ago I had a warning light of TMPS. I ordered Techstream software and by just deleting the errors the light stopped appearing and after 300km haven't appeared yet. I do plan to replace TPMS battery/module, but for now I don't want to be bothered by it.

Great car John!

The paint looks like brand new.

Exhaust and wheels looks very nice too.

Regarding oil I do have the same question. I bought my 450h 1 month ago, although the car only driven 3k km in 1 year and oil looks clean, but I'm preparing to change it some time soon. And I have the same question as you, Lexus oil vs third party oil.

On 1/18/2021 at 6:07 PM, ColinBarber said:

I think the plugs are Denso FK20HBR11. Even if worn they won't make much difference to the economy unless you were also feeling hesitation during acceleration. Whilst the plugs are changed at 60k miles, they are probably good for at least 100k miles.

Worth checking the brake callipers (rear) aren't binding/seized.

Now I totally feel no hesitation after changing the spark plugs in normal mode (haven't tried sport yet)! The the fuel economy feels much better, but I only drove 5kms. So not the best indicator. But before changing even driving 5kms the fuel economy would easily go over 18l/100km, now it stopped at 12l/100km. But I feel that it will get even better.

Regarding experience of changing spark plugs:

- The left side of the engine piece of cake. But the right side took little more time, mainly I had to try to take the wire harness out of the way as possible. Also had to take out of the way ABS/VSC controller box and brake fluid.

Old spark plugs:

Guide (same way to remove on the left side of the engine, on the right side little different but not very difficult):

3 hours ago, Thackeray said:

That's exactly the same behaviour as my IS300h. During the coronavirus lockdown last year I needed to keep the 12volt battery charged and as recommended by Lexus I put the car in Ready for an hour a week. Having nothing better to do, I logged the hybrid battery state of charge and when the engine started and stopped, (as well as the 12 volt battery charge). I don't have Techstream but I was also using the Hybrid Assistant app which shows a lot of useful data including the percentage charge of the hybrid battery.

What I found was that the hybrid battery charge would run down to 40% (equivalent to two bars on the dashboard meter) and then the engine would start. It would keep running until the hybrid battery reached 50% charge, which was displayed as three bars, and then the engine would stop. The state of charge would then gradually go down again (I had the radio on too but I doubt it uses a lot of charge compared with the air conditioning which was also on.) After 10 minutes it was down to 40% again (two bars) and the engine would start again. And so on.

This was at outdoor temperatures when little or no heating was needed. In winter weather the engine will keep running a bit longer to keep the cabin warm and the bars on the battery gauge will go higher than three.

The instinct of most people when they start using this hybrid system is to want the battery to be full, as you would with the petrol tank. But the point of the battery is to store spare electricity generated from braking. If the battery is already full the car has to throw away the energy as heat. So a good compromise level for the battery is around 50% - that leaves plenty of capacity to store regenerated energy but at the same time has a good store of energy to add to a sudden burst of acceleration.

Incidentally, the bars don't represent the battery's actual capacity. The computer will aim to prevent the battery going below 40% by starting the engine, or above 80% by using the electric motor to spin the engine without using petrol, which you might notice happening after going down a long hill and getting up to eight bars on the meter. Keeping the battery within this 40-80% range prolongs its working life.

Another thing I found out, with READY OFF mode traction Battery is not being used instead 12V is used. With READY ON traction Battery is used and it draws significant amount of Amps. I found that using Dr. Prius / Dr. Hybrid app. Very good. That app also allows you to run tests on your Battery but performance tests have a cost of 10€.

I also tried Hybrid Assistant, very good free app. It showed that mine Battery have a capacity of around 3.5 Ah out of 5.5 Ah, so 63% of the original capacity. Not too bad for 2007 car, I expected worst.

11 minutes ago, steve2006 said:

Just one thing Denis mentioned in your first post....don’t wait until the brake pad wear light comes on, the sensors cost more than the pads to replace.

Hmm... Isn't sensor part part of the brake pad? Unless Lexus uses different from the usual brake sensor setup.

24 minutes ago, Mr Vlad said:

Lovely car Denis. I strongly suggest find a car body shop to de swirl and polish your car. Doing it yourself unless you have a DA will be so time consuming and you could do more damage than good. I took my is250 to a body shop I know as my car had thousands of scratches and swirls. £80 later over 90% gone and gleaming. Look in the 2nd gen is250 section and look for a thread titled 13yr old paint. That's my car. 

Thanks for the advice. I was indeed considering to go to a professional shop.

I'm used to time consuming jobs. Yesterday I was vacuuming my car for something like 2 hours, almost until midnight. 😁

And no, I wasn't vacuuming the car for 2h, it was more vacuum one side, inspect, get a wet tower, clean something, try this new cleaning product, compare results, etc... I'm an easy going guy. I admit, I waste a lot of time doing things on ease with as much detail as possible.

And I love doing as much as DIY as I can. It's not about the money per say (although it counts), it's more about the knowledge I get that I can apply also to something else.

This video blowed my mind. And inspired me to do something like that.

10 minutes ago, royoftherovers said:

She is a beauty Denis. She has polished up really well. Glad you are pleased with it.

Where are you in Portugal ?

Currently living in Aveiro. Center of the Portugal, close to the ocean.

Actually, the car is not polished yet, has swirls and small scratches all over the car.

Next week going to buy a polishing kit to make it perfect (https://www.amazon.es/Meguiars-Ultimate-Paint-Care-ultpckit/dp/B079QZPB26)

Here go the pictures of my car. Finally remembered to take them during the day 😄

Very happy with the car.

4 hours ago, Britprius said:

The sport button alters the suspension, the throttle response, and the steering ratio. The number of turns from lock to lock is reduced.

 

Then what's for the Hybrid Power button?

8 hours ago, Steven Lockey said:

Ha, my only two other cars were a Rover 25 1.4l (78hp?) and a Citreon Saxo 1l (50hp)
Its such a big difference, particularly when at speed. First time I drove it, nearly went into 
the back of a truck on the dual carriage-way when I put my foot down to overtake quickly
and didn't realise quite how quickly it accelerated compared to my past cars! 😉

When I'm in sports mode, its incredibly responsive the the gas pedal. Might be due to the fact
I also keep the hybrid in power-assist mode which means the electric gives it a boost off from
low speed.

Automatics also naturally are slightly more laggy on acceleration than manuals so that might be
what you are noticing. One of the reasons I really like the 450h is cos the traction engine seems
to compensate for that completely in power assist mode.

When you say you use sport mode. Is it sport button or hybrid-power button? Because I thought sport button is only for suspension.

Although I didn't accidentally drove against anything, I did press the brake once as I would press clutch. That was a quick stop.

2 minutes ago, Steven Lockey said:

I can't imagine the car not throwing errors if multiple misfires are detected..... Check engine light would surely be on if this problem was bad enough to cause this.

I did checked for misfires in Techstream, the count was 0. And no error codes anywhere.

3 minutes ago, Steven Lockey said:

Do you feel the hesitation in sports mode? I drive mine exclusively in sports mode cos it feathers the acceleration to make it feel smooth in normal mode so much it feels like it is hesitating. Turning sports mode on and that goes completely.

For sure there is less hesitation in sport mode, but I would say I still feel some. Not instant acceleration. In normal mode, it has a noticeable hesitation and it feathers. It's very hard for me to tell this, I'm used to drive a considerably slower car with 101HP 1.6 gas

Hi everyone,

I was getting ready to buy some rear struts as they don't hold the rear trunk and I went ahead and also looked for front hood struts. But the front struts appear to be different from each other.

REAR    RIGH: 4178XD 0485N 184/06 CO 28 64530-0W091
REAR    LEFT: 4178XD 0485N 184/06 CO 28 64530-0W091
FRONT LEFT: 5303VC 0160N 178/06 AB 31 53440-0W091
FRONT RIGH: 5231VB 0160N 179/06 BH 28 53450-0W071

Is that normal or should I go ahead and buy the same model?

On another topic, the current struts are from STABILUS // LIFT-O-MAT that cost 19,10 €, but RIDEX cost 5,12 €. I don't mind if they don't last as long as the STABILUS, and since I'm buying 4 of those it seems a very good saving here. What do you think?

Cheers!

3 minutes ago, ColinBarber said:

I think the plugs are Denso FK20HBR11. Even if worn they won't make much difference to the economy unless you were also feeling hesitation during acceleration. Whilst the plugs are changed at 60k miles, they are probably good for at least 100k miles.

Worth checking the brake callipers (rear) aren't binding/seized.

I do feel the hesitation, but since I just bought the car I'm not sure if that is normal or not. For sure when I quickly floor there is a small delay.

Regarding callipers/disks/pads I checked them this Saturday and they were fine.

Confirmed with Lexus dealership that spark plugs were never changed. They should actually change them right now. Got a 750€ quote for the job. Includes: oil change, oil filter change, air filter (replaced 2 years ago) change, ac filter (replaced 2 years ago) change, break oil (replaced 2 years ago) change, coolant replacement (replaced 2 years ago), spark plugs change and apparently replace 2-3 of some kind of sealant rings in differential. It is 180.000 km service (110.000 miles) although my car has only 91.000 km and 13 years.

2 hours ago, royoftherovers said:

You won`t know until you replace them Denis.

By any chance do you have the part number for the OEM spark plugs? I have seen some spark plugs at auto-doc 15/20€ a piece (iridium 3 poles).

1 hour ago, Mossypossy said:

Low mpg at big motorway speed will have nothing to do with traction battery I would have thought, as it will barely be used.

I got 28mpg with a roof box on a 500 mile motorway journey at those speeds.

I wonder if my low mpg can be explained by old spark plugs (I don't think they were ever changed, but I'm not sure)

8 hours ago, Steven Lockey said:

1> 22 mpg is shockingly low.
Even in this weather I get 30 mpg+ from mine and its got 170k on the clock and is a year older.
Only time I saw even near 22 was when the traction battery was screwed.

What do you mean by "traction Battery was screwed"? What were the symptoms? Did check hybrid system light got on?

Thank you so much for the answer @ColinBarber. In question nº3, I'm referring to traction (hybrid) battery and not 12v Battery. The 12v Battery is not that small, it's a 450A with 60Ah. On my old car I had the same Battery capacity and I could easily stay 5h listening to radio while repairing my car.

Do you know exactly what accessories use traction Battery while parked with READY OFF? Like is the radio powers by traction Battery? Seat heaters? etc... Because something is draining very quickly traction Battery and it doesn't feel normal to me.

Hello all,

So I bought my GS450h 2008 with 56k miles 1 month ago. Although it feels smooth and everything is working fine I still have a few concerns.

1. When I bought it I drove 400 km (250 miles) at 140 km/h (87 mph) and the average consumption was 9.5 l/100km (22 mpg). This consumption wasn't very alarmist, I was expecting this. But during city drive I see very big consumption. I think if I would drive very slowly (like a grandpa), the best I could get it is something around 15 l/100km (35 mpg). But I if have ocasional quick launch, consumption launches average to 20 l/100km. The consumption data I'm showing here is obtained from car computer. Could not be accurate at all. This is not my biggest concern, but I feel that ICE is being overused due to bad hybrid Battery.

2. Each time I start my car (first time of the day) ICE kicks in. I do feel it can be normal since it is cold in my garage (8ºC). And maybe it is warming up the engine as part of normal procedure.

3. When I stay in the car for long periods of time with READY ON or READY OFF, only using radio, it discharges traction Battery 1 bar in 10/15 min (rough estimate). With READY ON when it reaches 2 bars left (purple) ICE kicks in to charge until 3 bars. One time, I was with READY OFF, heat ventilator ON, radio ON, probably headlights ON and playing with Techstream software checking errors, checking live data, etc... Radio stopped working, and every light in the car started to change intensity from LOW to HIGH (blinking). I know it had 2 or less Battery bars. When I tried to start the car I got warning light say to check something. I think it was related to steering power. And READY ON was not showing. After disconnecting 12V Battery and connecting everything started to work again. I checked 12V Battery health and it was like new. Any thoughts on this? Is it possible that it has nothing to do with the Battery state but rather a parasitic Battery drain? Because Battery feels to hold up from night to day.

4. I'm bought Techstream (bought from Amazon) and it came with V13 and V15 software. Both of them work fine to check codes, live data and customize settings. But when checking live data for Hybrid Control I get error. A fatal error kept popping up and not allowing to go forward. Does anyone experienced this? For insurance I bought another cable from different seller. And I also bought Veepeak OBDCheck BLE to try using Dr. Prius / Dr. Hybrid.

5. When I was driving back home after purchase on highway I turned on Adaptive Cruise Control and several times it stopped working telling me to clean the sensor. I did stop several times and cleaned it. But occasionally error would appear and disappear by it self. Does it happen to anyone else? Car was dirty as it was sitting in garage pretty much all the time. Last year owner drove something like 1500 miles.

6. So I bought this car, the only maintenance information paper I have is regarding oil. It was changed by Lexus 1 year ago, 1500 miles ago. I checked all levels (oil, coolant and brake) all looks good. Oil color looks like new (my friend mechanic said the same thing). I'm sure that car was always services by Lexus as I called to the dealer and confirmed that. I also confirmed that on the Lexus website where I can see miles intervals and dates when the car was assisted but the only thing I can see if the services was minor or major. I went to my local Lexus dealer trying to obtain more history but they couldn't release that information. All I know that the car never changed traction Battery and tires were changed last year.

Having almost no information about the past. What maintenance would you recommend. Should I change oil and filters even though it wasn't driven much? Should I change brake fluid? Coolant? Filters? Spark plugs?

7. Service manual never refers about fuel filter change. Does it even exist? Does it require change?

8. Dashboard rattling noise. I already saw some possible fixes, but does anyone related to this?

This will be it for now. I appreciate any help or suggestions.

Cheers!